Abstract: Speeches and writings, interview transcripts, correspondence, printed matter,
and photographs, relating to American foreign policy and especially to relations between the
United States and Poland.

Physical location: Hoover Institution Archives

Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English

Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open for research. Access to audiovisual materials requires at least two weeks advance notice.
Audiovisual materials include sound recordings, video recordings, and motion picture film.
Hoover staff will determine whether use copies of the materials requested can be
made available. Some materials may not be accessible even with advance notice. Please
contact the Hoover Institution Archives Audiovisual Specialist for further information.

The collection was acquired by the Hoover Institution Archives in 2005.

Accruals

Increments may have been received since this finding aid was prepared.
Please check Stanford University's online catalog Socrates at
http://library.stanford.edu/webcat
to find the full extent of the collection.

Biography / Administrative History

Richard T. Davies was U.S. ambassador to Poland from 1973 to 1978. Davies, who joined the Foreign Service
in 1947, spent his first two years in Poland as a consular and political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw.
His later assignments included counselor for political affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during the Cuban
missile crisis in 1962, director of the U.S. Information Agency for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and
deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs from 1970 to 1972.

During his five years as ambassador to Poland, Davies worked on trade issues and helped arrange state visits
by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. He also met frequently with members of the nascent democratic
opposition movement against the communist-led Polish government, as well as with Catholic cardinals Stefan
Wyszynski and Karol Wojtyla. The special relationship with Cardinal Wojtyla of Cracow, the future pope John
Paul II, that Ambassador Davies helped establish turned out to be particularly valuable for the United States
in the waning years of the cold war, during President Reagan's showdown with the Soviets. Ambassador Davies's
tenure in Warsaw also coincided with a successful penetration of Soviet defenses by U.S. intelligence, the
result of the services rendered the United States, the West, and NATO by Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, who during
1972-81 turned over to the Central Intelligence Agency some 30,000 Soviet documents containing the plans of the
Warsaw Pact for the invasion of Western Europe and, in 1980-1981, its plans for the invasion of Poland to
suppress Solidarity. Richard Davies retired as director of the State Department's human intelligence office
in Washington in 1980.

After retirement, Ambassador Davies chaired the Solidarity Endowment, a U.S. group supporting the Polish
workers' movement. From 1990 to 1998, he participated in Partners for Democratic Change, an international
organization founded to foster civil societies and institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. He also
contributed frequently to op-ed pages. Davies died in Washington in 2005.

Scope and Content of Collection

The Richard T. Davies Papers contain speeches and writings, interview transcripts, correspondence, printed matter,
and photographs, relating to American foreign policy and especially to relations between the United States and Poland.

Included among the papers is an extensive transcript of an oral history interview that covers Davies' entire
Foreign Service career. The papers also document Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski's achievements and Davies' efforts
to assist him after his escape to the United States. Kuklinski turned thousands of critical Soviet documents
over to the Central Intelligence Agency.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.